1.  City, Arturo Luz

Where are you hidden among towers
And spires, labyrinthine buildings scraping
The sky, obelisks, citadels, pyramids erected
On the rough concrete ground, where are you
In cross sections of shoebox malls, gilded forts,
Astrodomes and coliseums, condominiums
With antennae zigzagging through the smog,
Where could you be amidst a colossal tangle
Of palisades and pillars, in streamlined
Geometries of transnational empires?
 
Look
No more:
I am perched
On the roof
Of a ramshackle shanty
Piled on the peak of a mountain range of garbage.
 
 
2.  Castilla VIII, Fernando Zobel
 
This is the instant:
Thought exploding
On the canvas of the mind:
Eye meeting the sharp
 
Point of a knife.
This is the split-
Second moment of full-
Blooded truth: thought
Imploding as it eludes
 
The eye: eye meeting
The sharp point of a knife.
Now when the eye meets
The sharp point of a knife:
 
The canvas ruptures,
The mind ignites:
Blooming fireworks
Frozen in still-life.
 
 
3.  Kinupot, Edgar Talusan Fernandez
 
No wonder we can't break free
No matter how long, how wide, how
 
Deep we reach. We live in the ruse
Of space. The air is a cage.
 
And so is the page: words don't spill
Beyond its pale perimeter. All
 
Over us, all around us
Is the weight of whitewash.